Common Desktop Environment

This document, "Common Desktop Environment: Programmer’s Overview," serves as a high-level guide for developers looking to design, develop, or integrate applications within the Digital UNIX Common Desktop Environment (CDE).

The document is divided into two main parts:

1. Architectural Overview: It presents CDE's layered architecture, detailing key components such as:

   • Data Interaction GUIs: Tools like the ToolTalk Messaging Service and actions system for consistent user interaction and data handling.
   • Multiuser Collaboration: Mechanisms for distributed access to shared user data, including calendar management and network file sharing.
   • Desktop Management: Components like the Window Manager, Session Manager, Application Manager, File Manager, Style Manager, and Front Panel, which manage the visual and interactive aspects of the desktop.
   • Motif GUI Engine: Discusses the CDE Motif toolkit (an enhanced Motif 1.2.3), specific CDE widgets (SpinBox, ComboBox, Terminal Emulator, Text Editor, Help widgets), the Desktop Korn shell for scripting, and the Application Builder for GUI creation.
   • Integration Technologies: Underlying infrastructure like process execution control, application messaging, data typing, and method invocation that enable seamless inter-application cooperation.

2. Development Environment Overview: This part provides practical information for developers, categorizing application integration into three levels:

   • Basic Integration: Covers making applications launchable from the desktop, recognizing data files, and supporting font/color selection via the Style Manager.
   • Recommended Integration: Encourages applications to achieve a consistent look and feel and interoperability through adherence to the CDE Help System, ToolTalk Messaging Service, Session Manager, Drag and Drop, Internationalization guidelines, standard font names, error message conventions, and user customization.
   • Optional Integration: Introduces advanced features such as CDE Motif control widgets, deeper data typing mechanisms, action invocation, Workspace Manager interaction, embedding terminal and text editor widgets, calendar integration, and Desktop Korn shell scripting.

The document also emphasizes portability and maintenance, stressing compliance with Motif 1.2, ANSI-C, and X11R5 standards, and outlines the required libraries, header files, and demo programs available in the CDE development environment. It is intended to be read before starting application design and development to understand CDE's capabilities and integration requirements.